Teacher Effects on Minority and Disadvantaged Students’ Grade 4 Achievement

ABSTRACT

The authors examined the differential effects of teachers on female, minority, and low-socioeconomic status (SES) students’ achievement in Grade 4. They used data from a randomized experiment (Project STAR) and its follow-up study (LBS). Student outcomes included Grade 4 SAT scores in mathematics, reading, and science and student demographics included gender, race, and SES. The authors used multilevel models to determine how teacher effectiveness interacted with student gender, race, and SES. We also explored whether teacher effects were more pronounced in schools with high proportions of minority or female students. Results indicated that all students benefited from having effective teachers. The differential teacher effects on female, minority, and low-SES students’ achievement, however, were insignificant. There is some evidence in mathematics that teacher effects are more pronounced in high-minority schools. Finally, teacher effects seem to be consistent within and between schools.     

Teacher effects on student achievement in first grade: which aspects matter most?

The present study investigates the effects of teachers (background qualifications, attitudes and beliefs, and instructional practices) on student achievement in mathematics, reading, and spelling in 1st grade. Its theoretical framework and methodology are based on recent work by Palardy and Rumberger (2008). Data from the SiBO Project, a longitudinal study in Flemish primary education, were analyzed for the present study using 2-level regression analysis. The results showed that teacher background had the largest effect on mathematics achievement, whereas instructional practices had the largest effects on both reading and spelling achievement. Moreover, the size of teacher effects depended upon the specific learning domain: Larger teacher effects were found for mathematics than for spelling and reading. Overall, the results suggest that teachers had a modest to strong effect on student achievement in first grade.     

Mathematics teacher quality: its distribution and relationship with student achievement in Turkey

A main purpose of the present study was to investigate the distribution of qualified mathematics teachers in relation to students’ socioeconomic status (SES), as measured by parental education, among Turkish middle schools. Further, relationships between mathematics teacher quality indicators and students’ mathematics achievement were explored. Data from the 2007 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study were used. Relationships between mathematics teacher quality and students’ mathematics achievement were investigated using hierarchical linear modeling. The current study identified SES-related inequities in access to qualified mathematics teachers in Turkey. Low-SES students were more likely to be taught by mathematics teachers who had less than 3 years of experience or who did not hold a degree in mathematics or mathematics education. On the other hand, years of experience and a degree in mathematics or mathematics education were found to be substantially related to Turkish eighth-grade students’ mathematics achievement. Low-SES students’ mathematics teachers were also more likely to report a lack of confidence in their preparation to teach various mathematics contents.     

Singapore’s School Excellence Model and student learning: evidence from PISA 2012 and TALIS 2013

This study examines the relationship between key elements of the School Excellence Model (SEM) and student achievement in reading, mathematics and science as measured by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 and the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2013, using a sample of 166 schools in Singapore. Strategies, quality and resources are identified as school-level dimensions commonly involved in the SEM to select variables in PISA 2012 and TALIS 2013. A multilevel data analysis was conducted using hierarchical linear modelling. The results indicate that a triangulated school strategy focused on strengthening teacher participation, principal commitment and school responsibility has significant relationships with student performance. In particular, teachers’ instructional improvement contributed to student achievement, while teacher ratio to support teaching staff accounts for the largest variance in student achievement. Finally, school extra-curricular activities promote well-rounded student development that enhances learning achievement. Findings highlight the importance of school-based accountability that empowers teachers, in building school capacity for student achievement.     

Teachers, student achievement and national income: A cross-national examination of relationships and interactions

Despite costly global efforts to improve and reward teacher qualifications like education and experience, little international evidence exists on the relationship between these attributes and student achievement. It is also unclear whether these attributes are more important for disadvantaged children, or in lower-income countries. This article examines the relationships among teacher characteristics (experience, education, readiness to teach, and gender), student background, and fourth grade students’ mathematics and science achievement across 25 diverse countries participating in the 2003 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. The analysis revealed limited evidence that the teacher characteristics deemed important in teacher upgrading and compensation are systematically related to student test scores, or that these characteristics are more important for lower-income students. It also found no relationship between national income and the importance of these characteristics. These results add to increasing evidence that efforts to improve teacher quality must look beyond simply increasing and rewarding measurable teacher qualifications like education and experience. Further, those who design cross-national studies should consider developing richer measures of teacher skill and knowledge.     

Building the wall brick by brick: one prospective teacher’s experiences with mathematics anxiety

Mathematics education researchers have investigated mathematics anxiety in prospective elementary teachers. While many of these studies have focused on the bodily sensations and emotions of mathematics anxiety, particularly those felt in assessment situations, opportunities remain to investigate how prospective elementary teachers interpret their experiences with mathematics anxiety and connect them over time to compose personal histories of mathematics anxiety. Currently, over 90 % of elementary teachers in US schools are women, and women have been shown to suffer more from mathematics anxiety than do men. In this article, I analyze how one woman prospective elementary teacher described, explained, and related her experiences of mathematics anxiety across her personal narratives of learning mathematics as a K-12 student and of learning to teach mathematics as a college student in a teacher preparation program. My research demonstrates that experiences of mathematics anxiety may persist beyond assessment situations to influence women prospective elementary teachers’ larger mathematical histories. I also show that women prospective elementary teachers may interpret mathematics anxiety as specific fears (e.g., loss of opportunities for social participation) and may develop particular coping strategies related to those fears. Finally, I point out that while a coping strategy may be used consistently across K-12 mathematics learning and undergraduate teacher preparation, and may even offer a woman prospective elementary teacher some relief from mathematics anxiety, it may also limit her mathematics learning and professional development. To conclude, I present implications of my research for mathematics teacher educators.     

The distribution of pedagogical content knowledge in Cambodia: Gaps and thresholds in math achievement

Increasing teacher quality is a major objective of recent Cambodian education policy. In mathematics education literature, pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) has emerged as a critical component of teacher quality that is strongly linked to student achievement. In this study I use data from a large survey of Cambodian schools to investigate the effect of math teachers’ PCK on third grade student achievement. I use ordinary least squares and Quantile Regression analyses to examine this aspect of teacher quality. I find that pedagogical knowledge is a strong predictor of student math achievement in Cambodia in comparison to other student, school, and background variables, but that the effect is concentrated among higher achieving students. Quantile Regression with this dataset also exposes gaps and thresholds in achievement associated with other explanatory variables. In addition, I investigate the proportional distribution of teacher PCK in Cambodia and find that lower quality teachers are more likely to be teaching lower achieving students of lower socioeconomic status.     

Vaughn Elementary's Innovative Teacher Evaluation System: Are Teacher Evaluation Scores Related to Growth in Student Achievement?

In this study, I examined the validity of a performance-based, subject-specific teacher evaluation system by analyzing the relationship between teacher evaluation scores and student achievement. From a policy perspective, establishing validity was important because it is embedded in a knowledge-and skills-based pay system, which attached high stakes to evaluation scores. In the first stage of the study, I used hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to estimate value-added teacher effects, which were then correlated with teacher evaluation scores in literacy, mathematics, language arts, and a composite measure of student achievement. Additionally, teacher evaluation scores were inserted into the HLM models as subject-specific predictors of student achievement. Results indicate a strong, positive, and statistically significant relationship between teacher evaluation scores and student achievement in reading and a composite measure of teacher and student performance and a positive, although not statistically significant, relationship in mathematics. In the second stage of the study, I used document analyses and interviews with teachers to explore factors affecting the relationship between teacher evaluation scores and student achievement across subjects. Findings suggest that the relationship is stronger in reading than mathematics because both teachers and evaluators have more pedagogical knowledge and better alignment to standards and assessments in reading than in math.     

Exploring the Impact of Student Teaching Apprenticeships on Student Achievement and Mentor Teachers

Abstract

We exploit within-teacher variation in the years that math and reading teachers in grades 4–8 host an apprentice (“student teacher”) in Washington State to estimate the causal effect of these apprenticeships on student achievement, both during the apprenticeship and afterwards. While the average causal effect of hosting a student teacher on student performance in the year of the apprenticeship is indistinguishable from zero in both math and reading, hosting a student teacher is found to have modest positive impacts on student math and reading achievement in a teacher’s classroom in following years. These findings suggest that schools and districts can participate in the student teaching process without fear of short-term decreases in student test scores while potentially gaining modest long-term test score increases.     

Special education and subject teachers’ self‐perceived readiness to teach mathematics to low‐performing middle school students

Educational reforms during the last decade have led to a more inclusive environment for students with different needs and have placed demands on teachers’ readiness to instruct diverse students in the general classroom. Previous research has ascertained that student achievement is correlated with teacher quality and teachers’ efficacy beliefs. Today, basic competence in mathematics is more important than ever for managing routine day‐to‐day activities and therefore, identifying and educationally supporting students with low performance in mathematics is necessary. The aim of the study was to investigate the perceived teacher efficacy beliefs of special education and mathematics teachers when teaching mathematics to low‐performing middle school students. Results indicated that special education teachers had higher teacher efficacy beliefs than mathematics teachers. Teacher experience, certification or gender had no effect on teachers’ efficacy beliefs. Furthermore, subject teachers reported high pedagogical knowledge for teaching low‐performing students, and special education teachers reported having moderate mathematical subject knowledge.     

The effects of teacher mathematics knowledge and pedagogy on student achievement in rural Guatemala

Why are some teachers more effective than others? The importance of understanding the interplay between teacher preparation, pedagogy and student achievement has motivated a new line of research focusing on teacher knowledge. This study analyses the effects of teacher mathematics knowledge on student achievement using longitudinal data from rural Guatemalan primary schools. After presenting a conceptual framework for linking the work of the teacher with student learning in mathematics together with an overview of the different forms of teacher knowledge, the paper introduces the Guatemalan context and the analytical framework including the sample, data and methods. Overall, the results provide some empirical support for a widely held, if infrequently tested, belief in mathematics education: effective teachers have different kinds of mathematical knowledge. The results also suggest specific mechanisms by which effective teachers can make substantial impacts on student learning, even in extremely poor contexts.     

The microeconomics of the allocation of teachers' time and student learning

The authors use a microeconomic theory of schools and highly detailed panel data on time allocations to examine student learning curves for reading and mathematics. In addition to examining the factors that affect student achievement, they investigate the role teachers' values play in allocating scarce learning time to students, and the subsequent effects on the distribution of learning across those students. They test hypotheses about the productivity of teachers in teaching mathematics and reading, whether marginal products vary across a sample of teachers, and whether the marginal products of time in alternate types of classroom organization significantly differ. The authors' findings are consistent with the view that more time on a subject does increase learning, but suggest that the size of the effects is small and subject to diminishing returns. With respect to teacher preferences, the results show that teachers in the sample overwhelmingly employed compensating strategies in allocating resources to the students. Teachers tend to prefer narrower distributions of learning across students than wider ones.     

Role of teacher characteristics and school resources in early mathematics learning

The authors investigated the degree to which school-level teacher characteristics and resources are related to the mathematics learning of kindergarten children using a sample drawn from a large US database. Kindergarten-level teacher characteristics were operationalised as collective teacher efficacy, teacher experience and teacher preparation; kindergarten resources were operationalised as efforts that schools make to reach out to parents, classrooms with mathematics manipulatives, and classroom technology. Kindergarten students learned more in mathematics over a year in schools where teachers’ collective efficacy was high. School resources yielded a range of significant yet mixed results in young children’s mathematics achievement. Notably, younger students and students entering kindergarten with lower levels of mathematical skills benefited greatly from classroom resources. Overall, the presence of classroom technology as a school-level resource was positively related with older kindergarten students’ learning. Based upon the findings, organisational and policy implications are discussed.     

Adjusting expectations or maintaining first impressions? The stability of teachers' expectations of students’ mathematics achievement

The issue of teacher expectation stability is crucial in understanding the self-fulfilling prophecies generated by teacher expectations. However, currently there is a lack of empirical evidence related to teacher expectation stability. The aim of the current study was to assess the temporal stability of teacher expectations of their students’ mathematics achievement within the timeframe of one school year. Random-Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Models were employed based on a sample of 2536 students taught by 89 teachers in New Zealand elementary and middle public schools. Strong rank order stability was found in teacher expectations at the between-student level. Expectation instability was present at the within-student level. Paths from student mathematics achievement to teacher expectations were stronger than the paths in the opposite direction, indicating that teachers adapted their expectations for students to fall in line with student performance and continued to do so throughout the year.     

Overcoming Some Addition Difficulties

Abstract

In literature relating to elementary school reading it is commonly contended that attitudes toward reading influence achievement in reading and that teachers’ attitudes (and achievement) affect pupils’ attitudes and achievement. As yet there is little research support for this contention. In opposition is the view expressed in teacher effectiveness literature that there may be a degree of incompatibility between maximizing in pupils both desired cognitive (or achievement) outcomes and desired affective outcomes (for example, favorable attitudes). The validity of these two positions was assessed by administering reading attitude and achievement tests to 251 final-year student teachers and to the grade 4 through 6 pupils (approximately 900) of 48 of these teachers twice during the following year. One-way analyses of variance were used to investigate teacher-pupil relationships. Findings indicated that high achievement and high attitude in teachers were positively associated with high achievement and high attitudes in pupils; in the pupils of low achievement and low attitude teachers, achievement was low, but attitudes were more favorable than those expressed by the pupils of middle achievement and middle attitude teachers.     

Student Background and Teacher Effects on Achievement and Attainment in Mathematics: A Longitudinal Study

In this article, we have studied the effect of student social background, classroom social context, classroom organisation, and teacher behaviours on mathematics achievement and attainment ill English and Welsh primary schools. Data were collected over 2 years as part of a programme evaluation, for which we observed 138 teachers and tested and collected background data on over 3,000 students. Results were analysed using multilevel modeling, and point to the importance of student background and teacher behaviours to achievement and attainment. The implications of these findings are explored.     

The Domain-Specificity of Elementary School Teachers’ Judgment Accuracy

Teachers’ diagnostic competence for accurately judging students’ achievement is essential for instructional practice and professional decisions. To promote their judgment accuracy, it is important to know if this is a general or domain-specific skill. We investigated teachers’ judgment accuracy in German language (one subdomain: reading) and mathematics (two subdomains: geometry; stochastics) and examined differences across domains (i.e., German and mathematics) and across subdomains (reading; geometry; stochastics). We examined the judgment accuracy of 59 German elementary school teachers who teach both German and mathematics, judging the achievement of 1227 students in the three subdomains. We conducted multilevel analyses with a subsample of 39 teachers and 787 students and calculated different accuracy components (i.e., rank, level, and differentiation) to examine the comparability of our results. In line with prior research, findings revealed that teachers’ judgments were fairly accurate. However, there were significant differences between teachers’ average judgment accuracy in different subdomains (between-person comparisons) and no or only a weak relation between individual teachers’ judgment accuracy in different subdomains (within-person comparisons). Findings support the notion that teachers’ judgment accuracy of student achievement is domain-specific with respect to the investigated subdomains. Practical implications for the promotion of teacher judgment accuracy are discussed.     

Promoting Student Engagement Through Evidence-Based Action Research With Teachers

We present findings from a group-randomized teacher action research intervention to promote academic engagement and achievement among elementary school students. Eighteen teachers from 3 elementary schools were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 groups. Intervention teachers studied evidence-based instructional practices that cultivate academic engagement and conducted an action research project to implement selected practices in their classrooms. Control teachers participated in a self-study group and read about evidence-based practices to promote student engagement. Teachers in the action research group reported using more group-based instruction than self-study teachers. Students with initial low engagement and low reading grades demonstrated greater gains in these outcomes in action research classrooms than self-study classrooms. Implications for teacher development and the promotion of student academic outcomes are discussed.     

Effects of a data-based decision making intervention on student achievement

Data-based decision making (DBDM) is becoming important for teachers due to increasing amounts of digital feedback on student performance. In the quasi-experimental study reported here, teachers, principals, and academic coaches from 42 schools were trained for two years in using the results of half-year interim assessments for providing students with tailor-made instruction. Our results did not show any main effects of this DBDM training trajectory on student achievement but did indicate interaction effects with students’ low prior achievement levels and socioeconomic status. Teachers experience difficulties in translating student progress data into adaptive instruction in the classroom. Implications of our findings for teacher professionalization are discussed.